How to drop columns using Rails migration

Question

What\'s the syntax for dropping a database table column through a Rails migration?

Answer 1

There are two good ways to do this:

remove_column

You can simply use remove_column, like so:

remove_column :users, :first_name

This is fine if you only need to make a single change to your schema.

change_table block

You can also do this using a change_table block, like so:

change_table :users do |t|
  t.remove :first_name
end

I prefer this as I find it more legible, and you can make several changes at once.

Here's the full list of supported change_table methods:

http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/ConnectionAdapters/SchemaStatements/change_table